


don't open your eyes, Things are best gone unseen

by houseofhimbos



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Mind Manipulation, Nothing Is Described In Overt Detail, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Horror, Standard TMA-style Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofhimbos/pseuds/houseofhimbos
Summary: TMA-inspired horror anthology for our favorite love interests (by which I mean all of them).(For a prompt that I took too far on Tumblr.)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. spiraling out of control, spiraling into despair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TyraelNS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyraelNS/gifts).



“Whatever you do, don't open your eyes. It can't harm you as long as you don't look at it.”

Asra’s eyes don’t need to be closed for him not to be able to see, but he closes them anyway, in that street back from Selasi’s shop. But closed eyes are not adequate protection against whatever force that his Apprentice chose to warn him about, and too long fingers close around his neck. (There are too many joints in those fingers, and it’s nails scrape at the skin of his throat. He is both disgusted and terrified.) It drags him into a doorway (there was not a doorway there before, he has walked this street many times) and he opens his eyes just enough to see the horrified expression on the Apprentice’s face before the door shuts, separating them both.

The thing laughs, and it grates at Asra’s ears like nothing he’s ever heard before. The sound is bizarre, as it lets go of his neck, and in a way, it sounds like static. Whirling around to face this being and opening his mouth to shout, the words die in his throat as he stares upon the thing that has taken him. Before him stands a person, who he knows is not really a person. It has impossibly curly hair, falling well below its knees, and multicolored, fractal eyes. It is not human. (It is definitely not human, as it opens its mouth to smile, because there are too many teeth, too sharp and numerous and tiny.)

“... Who are you? Wh-” 

It cuts him off abruptly with a wave of its hand. “ _Who_ am I, little magician? No, no, no. That’s the wrong question. I’m more of a _what_ , really.”

“Where are we, then?”

“Me, of course! What you see before you, around you… hm. To put it in human terms, the form you see right now is like… a finger, perhaps? And these halls are akin to a stomach.”

“Where’s my apprentice?” Asra’s getting more aggressive in his questioning, and he wills down the rising anger and panic by some miracle. It still roils underneath the surface of his skin, threatening to bubble free, but mostly he is terribly, desperately confused by the situation.

“They are safe, for _now_. They’re just outside the door. I can see them wanting to open it – they really ought to avoid touching the handle, wouldn’t want them in here with us.” It laughs again, distorted and echoing in all the wrong places. Asra thoughts race, _No, not them, I can’t lose them again_.

“Don’t hurt them, please. Whatever you do, please, I’m begging you, don’t _**hurt**_ them.”

“What can you give me in return, then?” Its voice sinks into a drawl, low and creeping. The sound of it makes Asra want to run back to that door, to escape the bending of his mind to hell and back, but it is no longer there. 

“I only have myself to offer. For as long as– No. For five days, you may have me.” 

“Very well, silly mortal. 5 days, here, with me.” It extends one of its terrible hands, and Asra shakes it without too much fuss. (He doesn’t want to make this deal, but if they’re safe, then it was well worth the price. ~~It is not, but Asra doesn’t know that yet.~~ ) “We have a deal, then! Oh, _brilliant_. I’ll have fun breaking you...”

The space that the entity has brought him into, it turns out, is a slowly curving hallway. There seems to be no end, and there is nothing chasing him here, so Asra walks. He walks, he walks, and he walks until his feet can no longer propel him forward. Water isn’t an issue (never has been) but the food… he realizes with a start, however, that he isn’t actually hungry. Nor is he tired, and his feet do not hurt, and there is a mirror in front of him which was not there before a few seconds ago. He can see… the apprentice? And, and Ilya, and Nadi, and he rushes forward to press his face up against the surface, sobbing. 

They are not there when he touches the glass, and it shatters underneath his fingertips. He recoils, hissing at his newly formed wounds. Muttering a quick incantation to close them up, he resolves to just… stay in one place while he waits for his 5 days to be up. 

It is cold. It is warm. It is nothing at all, and by the end of day one, Asra no longer knows up from down, left from right. He starts walking again on day two, trying to escape the shadows that chase him, taunt him with lies about his apprentice. His joints double, and double again, and then return back to normal at random intervals, so his gait is always clumsy and he trips over his own feet more often than not. The pain is nearly unbearable, but it’s better than the whispers that threaten to destroy his mind. 

He forgets. _The moment Asra forgets what it is like to be human, that is when the entity laughs for a final time._

5 minutes later, Asra is accompanied out by the thing that took him away. He sinks to his knees, crying, eyes unseeing. The apprentice scoops him into their arms protectively, and they hiss at this monster, this thing that they could not save him from.

“What have you done to him?” 

“Nothing permanent, not if you take care of him properly afterward. Isn’t it cute? Now you two match! Be careful with him, Fool… you wouldn’t want him to break again. I don’t think his little human mind could take it!”


	2. the ceaseless watcher never tires of your mistakes

“Whatever you do, don't open your eyes. It can't harm you as long as you don't look at it.”

Nadia had nothing to fear in her own palace, but her intuition told her that perhaps it might be a good idea to follow suit with the Apprentice’s words. So she closes her eyes and waits. She waits and waits, and just as she is about to open her eyes once more (had they made a mistake?), she felt it. A terrible sense of dread washes over the countess, and she reaches out blindly to hold her partner’s hand in a vain attempt at comfort. They reach back, squeezing her hand comfortingly. 

“It’s okay, Nadia. Just keep your eyes closed, and things will be alright.”

Things are very much _not_ okay, as the weight of thousands, no, countless eyes settle on her very soul. It feels as if someone is rifling through her mind, taking stock of every mistake that she’s made over the course of her life (she has not made many, but now it feels like she’s made hundreds of irredeemable missteps, under this… thing’s scrutiny). She shivers, as the feeling of her being vivisected and examined under harsh light only continues to build. Nadia is used to being perceived by the citizenry of Vesuvia, but that is on her own terms. This? This… unspeakable seeing, this probing is without her consent. It’s without her permission, as she is watched and torn asunder by whatever being has decided to make her a target of examination.

_Poor, poor little light. You humans are so quaint with your… boundaries. Consent? What is consent under the pursuit of knowledge? Feh. Perish the thought! The concept is contradictory to my very existence._

What was that?

_Don’t fret about the small details. T’wouldn’t do for you to show weakness, after all. Mistakes will be your downfall, Miss Satrinava. One misstep and your kingdom will come crumbling down… at least, that’s what I’ve garnered so far. Your sisters really did a number on you, didn’t they?_

“Stop,” she says, tears coming to the corner of her eyes, “please, have you not taken enough?” Her eyes are still closed. She doesn’t think she wants to open them right now, for whatever is combing through her thoughts, her story… it must be too terrible to behold. The Apprentice makes a distressed noise beside her, and a hand comes up to wipe away her tears. 

_I’ve not taken. I’ve simply… seen. Recorded. Your life has been so very interesting thus far, after all, and it was high time that I take note of it. Thank you for your statement, Miss Nadia Satrinava. I should quite like to see where the rest of your life goes - another time, perhaps later down the line?_

“No thank you,” she shakily responds, the disembodied voice in her head echoing about her ears.

_Pity. You realize you don’t have a choice, right?_

“No thank you,” she repeats, stronger this time. Nadia knows it won’t stop the thing that descended upon her, not now and not ever, but it seems to send it away for now. She collapses into the Apprentice’s waiting arms, choking back a sob. She opens up her eyes. There’s nothing changed except the ashen expression that plays on their face.

“What was that?”

“I… I don’t know. It didn’t feel like an Arcana, but it was just as powerful - maybe even more so.”

“Well… let’s get to work, then. I have a lot of research to do.”


	3. death has not cast you away, wretch

“Whatever you do, don't open your eyes. It can't harm you as long as you don't look at it.”

Julian’s words got caught in his throat before he could even open his mouth, swallowed down as he shut his eye with a snap. They’d been on their way back to the shop from the Rowdy Raven when the Apprentice said that to him, and as much trouble as he knew he could be, he didn’t want to run the risk of magical trouble. Yet even still, Julian didn’t think that they would predict that the Earth would open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole in the blink of an eye. He yelped as he felt warm dirt drag him under the surface, fingertips brushing against the Apprentice’s in that final attempt to save him. (Quaint of them, really, to think of him at the end. Was this how he died? It’d been a long time coming if it was, though he’d thought that rope was going to be more involved.)

Minutes pass him by, and he realizes that there’s _just_ enough of an air pocket for him not to suffocate to death. Still, it’s uncomfortably dark, cramped, and _warm_ (why he wore so many layers was beyond him at the moment), enough so that he almost, _almost_ starts hyperventilating. Still, he can feel the vibrations of someone pounding at the dirt above him, the sounds of magic being flung at the ground to no avail. 

“I’m alright,” he tries to shout, but the words are caught uselessly in the surrounding material. Right. Dirt… muffles. Okay, then. He’ll just… wait it out, then. He’s been in uncomfortably tight spaces before, this should be no different. Right? ( ~~Wrong~~.)

It’s suffocating, being underground like this. His limbs are twisted into uncomfortable positions, there’s barely enough to breathe, and the claustrophobia is settling into his skin like the world’s most uncomfortable blanket. He didn’t want to admit it, but… the crushing weight of the earth around him is slowly making him feel very much more like a corpse than he’s comfortable with. And sure, he’s been in bad places before, to the point where this kind of fate might've felt deserved, but right now? With something, someone to live for? Julian starts clawing at the dirt desperately, trying to climb his way out of whatever dragged him down. He can feel the wet clay of Vesuvia’s foundation cling to his boots, trying to pull him further down. 

“Absolutely not, not if I can help it,” he growls, spitting out dirt as he painstakingly climbs, centimeter by centimeter, out of the grave that’s been made for him. He doesn’t want death, at least not like this, not trapped and helpless and without seeing the Apprentice’s face one last time. (If he’s going to die, it had best be on his own terms because _this_ is completely unacceptable.) The earth itself seems to taunt him, however, because for every few inches of progress he makes, it drags him down a couple more. No. No, he wasn’t going to have his last breaths taken to be of a buried kind, this wasn’t what he wanted-! ( _Really, now? Then what **did** you want?_)

He doesn't have time to answer that, because the Apprentice finally bursts through solid stone, and a hand clasps around his outstretched wrist to drag him out of the dirt.

“Hhhahh, god, I don’t want to have to do that again. That was decidedly one of the least sexy ways I could’ve died –”

“Idiot!” They smack him upside the head, chuckling weakly. “Are you okay?”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be going spelunking any time soon,” he responds, shuddering slightly at the thought, “but otherwise, I’m all in one piece, darling.”

“Good. Don’t ever make me pull you out of the earth again, or I’ll kill you myself.”

“This raven prefers the wind underneath his feathers - you don’t have to tell me twice.”


End file.
